


Photograph

by J_33



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Hydra, Sorry Not Sorry, romanogers - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-29
Updated: 2015-04-30
Packaged: 2018-02-27 09:07:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2687126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/J_33/pseuds/J_33
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They say pictures are worth a thousand words, but all she needed was three.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> There was a prompt that said Nat gives up there life so that Steve can live, so I wrote this. Feeling pretty crappy today, but ENJOY:)

There were pictures scattered all around the room – stacked on tables, hidden in drawers, and taped to bulletin boards. They were pictures of her and Steve, some from a distance, some just a blur, and some very intimate ones, personal ones, of private occasions.

Natasha felt the bile creep up her throat.

“Agent Romanoff, you look like you’ve seen a ghost,” said the voice of a man, from behind.

“How did you get these?” she asked, attempting to mask her growing fear.

“Hydra has eyes everywhere, you of all people should know that,” she could hear him smirk.

“What do you want Pierce?” she said his name like venom. 

Three armed guards came out of nowhere, and pushed her down into the metal chair in the middle of the room. She didn’t resist.

“Well,” he said, taking a seat across from her, leaning back in the chair like this was some casual conversation, but she knew that it was anything but. “It has come to our attention that you are a threat to our business, and Rogers is a threat as well, but you two together – let’s just say that’s like mixing cesium and sulfur: boom.”

“So kill me already,” she replied.

“Can I ask you something Natasha?” he said, drawing out her first name.

“Can I say no?”

“Do you love him?”

“He is a good man, I trust--,”

“But do you love him?” he asked, something evil in his eyes. “These pictures,” he started, one of his goons handing him a pile of photographs. “They say that you do,” he said, showing her each picture.

One was her and him smiling at each other in her Corvette. Another was of them at dinner, he was dressed in a suit, her in a dress. There was one of her kissing him on the cheek, one of their silhouettes inside a window, and the last one… the worst one. She remembered that night clearly. They had just gotten home from a particularly tough mission. Natasha was nursing a gunshot wound that brushed her arm. Steve had just said I love you. She didn’t say it back, instead, despite the pain in her arm, she pushed him against the wall and kissed him hard. 

One thing led to another and, “These were private moments,” Natasha stated angrily. 

“Nothing is private these days,” Pierce said. “Did you ever say it back?” he asked, and she knew what he was talking about, but she didn’t answer. “I was right. People like us aren’t capable of love, though a picture can be worth a hundred words. All you needed was three.”

They then showed her a tablet with what seemed to be live video footage of Steve inside his apartment. “If you touch him I swear I’ll kill you,” she said through gritted teeth.

“Here’s our one and only offer. We let you go, you say that the mission went well. You then go break up with Rogers, and never speak to him again. The slightest hint that you gave him a clue to what’s really going on will lead to his termination, and yours. Do we have a deal?”

“What happens if I say no?”

“Then we take in Rogers, and see just how long it takes to break Captain America.” 

“So I just pack up my things and pretend that none of this happened. What happens after the next world crisis?”

“That’s why you’re sitting here, and not Captain America. Because you can be replaced,” Pierce said.

 

*** 

She sat in her car for what seemed like hours before mustering up enough courage to get out, and knock on his door. He greeted her with a smile, which was just making this all the more difficult. 

“How was the mission?” Steve asked, welcoming her inside the place that she once called home. 

“It went fine,” she said, refusing to look him in the eyes afraid she might break down. 

“What’s wrong?” he asked, noticing something was off about her.

“I can’t do this anymore,” she said, finally looking up at him.

“What are you talking about Nat?” 

“You and me – we both new that this, whatever this was between us was never meant to last,” she said, locking down her emotions, refused to falter. She just kept telling herself that she was doing this to save his life.

“That’s not true. We may be different but--,” 

“But nothing. It was fun while it lasted, but I can’t keep living in this fantasy world.”

“If you’re going to leave,” he said grabbing her by the shoulders forcing her to look at him, and see the pain in his eyes. “If you are going to leave then look me in the eyes and tell me what we had wasn’t real. Tell me you don’t love me, because you made me fall in love with you,” he finished, his voice breaking. 

Natasha put her hand on his cheek, rubbing her thumb against his chiseled jaw, feeling the stubble just starting to grow, wanting so badly to kiss him, but then she knew that she’d never be able to leave. 

“Love is for children,” she whispered, breaking from his grasp. “Goodbye Steve.”

“Don’t just walk away!” he shouted, as she made her way towards the door. “We can work on this. I—I can be better, I promise,” he said painfully, but she didn’t look back, she couldn’t look back and see the hurt look on his face, the pain that she caused.

So instead, she walked out the door, fighting against every nerve in her body telling her to fix this. Holding back the tears, she ran into her car, and forced herself to drive away. She received a text minutes after leaving that said “Thank you for your service agent Romanoff, --AP” 

Chucking her phone in the backseat, full of anger at that man who had taken something so good, and ruined it. She kept driving, hoping that if she kept driving somehow she would wake up next to Steve, and find out this was all some horrible nightmare. 

But it wasn’t a nightmare it was her life. And sometimes in life you need to let go of the ones you love, to keep them safe, even if they don’t know it yet.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I started this in November, and it was originally gonna be a one-shot but I recently got some very kind reviews to continue this story so here is the conclusion to the train wreck I left it off at.

Her hair was a dark brown, and she had a scar that went from her ear, and down to her carotid artery, but she was the same Natasha Romanov he fell in love with five years ago.

 

Five years since she told him that love was for children, that it wasn’t him, it was her. The pain didn’t change, and neither did his feelings, and Steve didn’t know if that was a good thing. It’s not like she was still hung up on him. He’s sure that she didn’t dream about his face, and smile, and miss the feeling of his hand in hers.

 

None of that really mattered, or it mattered too much that Steve chose not to think about it.

 

They had run into each other while he was searching for Bucky, in some burnt out Hydra facility. He heard a movement to his right, and before he could react, someone half his size had tackled him to the ground, and pinned him to the floor. Dazed, Steve looked up at the person who had attacked him, and there he saw those green eyes looking down at him. After the realization dawned on them both, Natasha got up quickly, and offered him a hand.

 

 _Of course it’s her; who else could sneak up on a super soldier,_ he thought.

 

From there, Natasha led him into some nearby diner, in London. He wondered how well she knew this place. Sitting down, across from her in the red booth, he didn’t know what to say, and to his disbelief neither did she.

 

“How have you been?” she asked softly, genuinely, breaking the awkward silence.

 

Steve hated that he didn’t hate her, he couldn’t hate her.

 

“Fine,” he replied coldly. “I assume you know about SHIELD, or what’s left of it.”

 

“Yeah,” she said looking down at her hands.

 

“You could’ve called,” he stated.

 

“I could’ve, but…” she started.

 

“But what? You remembered that you didn’t love me, that we were too different too make whatever we _had_ work, or did you just not give a damn?” he asked bitterly.

 

“ _Steve_ ,” she said back in a pained voice, that he almost felt guilty _, almost._ “I left, and I know it doesn’t matter how many nights I stay awake regretting that, because I was the one that left, but you have to understand that I did it to protect you,” she finished, and he could have sworn that he saw a slight tremor jolt through her left arm.

 

“You did it to protect me? Well, sorry I didn’t thank you sooner, it just didn’t feel very much like protection to me,” he said back sarcastically.

 

“Alexander Pierce,” she said, referring to one of the SHIELD security councilors, one who was dead now. “He-he, had picture, photographs, of you and me – intimate photos, private ones,” she said shaking her head in disgust. “He told me if I didn’t leave he would hurt you, he said you and I together was a threat to his organizations – to Hydra, and I was the replaceable one. I didn’t have a choice.”

 

“You had a choice Natasha,” Steve said raising his voice slightly. “You could have told me the truth, we could have got through it, you could have chosen to stay,” _with me, till death do us part._

 

She just shook her head. “It wasn’t that simple. He had live video footage of your apartment. If I told you he would have killed us both,” she stated.

 

“Maybe he wouldn’t have, maybe…”

 

“You act like you’re the only one hurting. Well you know what, I’ve been hurting for five years, and every time I picked up my phone to dial your number just to hear your voice, I stopped because you being alive was worth my pain, it was worth the torture of living without you. You were safe, and that was all that mattered,” she finished, and he could see the unshed tears in her eyes, tears that she probably would never cry.

 

Steve reached across the Diner table, and took her small hands into his own. “You don’t have to keep protecting me, Pierce is dead. I’m okay, we’re both okay,” he said, and he meant it.

 

***

 

“God, I missed you so much,” he said against her lips, in some dingy apartment that she had been hiding out in for a few months.

 

“I missed you more,” she said, running her hands through his hair.

 

“Why does everything need to be a competition with you?” he asked playfully.

 

“Why do you have to keep talking when I’m trying to kiss you?”

 

Steve was about to respond, but then stopped himself. He pushed Natasha against the wall, and he pulled back from her lips, to look at her, really look at her. She had changed so much, but that didn’t change anything. His heart still skipped a beat every time he thought of her laugh, smile –

 

He ran is finger down the scar the slid down the curve of her neck, and marked her skin. He wondered how she got it, and how much it hurt. Maybe it was time for him to start protecting her, but of course, she would just laugh, and say that she didn’t need to be protected, and that was the truth.

 

She was so incredibly strong, and that was just one of the many reasons why he loved her so damn much it hurt, almost more than losing her hurt.

 

“Stop hiding,” he whispered. “Come home.”

 

“Home is wherever you are,” she said back, before kissing him once again.

 

There love was a like a photograph. Captured in the moments they spent together, some photos blurry, and a little torn on the edges, but still intact, still beautiful, and most importantly, it said what words could not. Three words that tore them apart, and brought them back together:

 

“I love you,” she whispered as if it were a secret, some precious gem, with her head on his bare chest as they laid on her uncomfortable mattress.

 

“I love you too,” he said back, and like a giant weight got lifted off his chest, all the missing photographs fell back into place, in the album they called their heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading. With AOU coming out tomorrow I thought I'd write one last thing as a sort of safety blanket to go back to just incase. Whatever happens in the movie, I promise to keep writing, so all you people just sit back, and keep reading, and encouraging.
> 
> Anyways, Thanks, and review below:)

**Author's Note:**

> THanks for reading!


End file.
